The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 87

The terrorist, whose hand had burst like a balloon, was dragged away without managing to let out so much as a proper scream.

The sight of him being swept out like a leather sack in the hands of escorts armored with artificial bodies would have put onlookers in mind less of a human being and more of broken machinery.

In air where the traces of electronic jamming had not yet fully cleared, the smell of gunpowder and blood intermingled and slowly spread through the banquet hall.

“To think you had been holding back one final move even in that situation…. I don’t know what words could do it justice.”

“My hand was within reach, so I dealt with it. Think nothing of it.”

It was a formulaic reply. He held no eye contact, allowed no break in his composure.

In the lingering tension that lapped at the edges of the silence, Masahito fell quiet for a moment before lifting the corner of his mouth and adding his admiration.

“In any case, what remarkable skill. That precision, with electronic warfare drones running full jamming…. One could truly call it the mark of a master archer.”

As I was making a point of letting those flowing praises wash past me, Kim Hyunwoo’s expression rotting at the corner of my vision caught my eye.

‘Well, what did you want me to do. A bomb nearly went off in front of our partner. Was I supposed to just stand there and watch?’

I muttered silently and did not look away when our eyes met. If you didn’t like it, you should have stopped it first with that vaunted phase power of yours.

Meanwhile, the middle managers of the corporate city arrayed around Masahito were replaying Kim Hyunwoo’s phase power in their heads on a loop, absorbed in analysis.

Most of them wore no expression at all, eyes buried in communication devices or built-in monitors, but the sheer fact that they were present, watching, and that looking away from them did nothing to make them comfortable. That was enough.

“…So, who is this person? From what they were saying, they didn’t appear to be a simple assassin.”

At my question, Masahito drew a short breath.

He seemed composed, but in the depths of those eyes, a flicker of distinct displeasure passed.

Having just suffered a bombing, he could hardly keep his mouth shut. He already knew that.

“…’The Society of Truth.’ It will be a tendril of a religious group that has been spreading among the lower classes lately.”

“The Society of Truth?”

An unfamiliar name.

One I had never heard even in my previous life. Yet from its very sound, the stench of a sham floated off it.

Of course.

The word ‘truth’ has a way of arriving always as the enforcement of belief, never as truth itself.

“It is a religious organization that has been appearing throughout Kyushu recently. Disguised as a charity, it makes its rounds through the slums on the city outskirts, distributing food and arranging shelter, expanding its base. On the surface, they appear to be nothing more than those who extend a hand to the hungry…. But.”

“Why would people like that do something like this?”

Picking up the end of my sentence, Masahito tilted his head slightly and continued.

“They worship monsters, or more precisely the ‘Rifts’ that generate those monsters. Since news of the planned subjugation of Honshu came to light recently, it seems they have framed it as ‘an intrusion upon the domain of God.’ Today’s attack here was an extension of that.”

“They… worship monsters?”

Kim Hyunwoo murmured quietly. Of all the things to believe in, they chose to believe in the Rifts?

Masahito seemed to feel much the same way, closing his eyes and slowly shaking his head.

“At their core, these people are lower-class individuals who never obtained city citizenship. Those who live without the city’s protection, in shantytowns near the outer walls. They contribute nothing to our city’s development, and merely demand food and shelter. The sort of parasitic lot.”

Well, would you look at how this man talks.

In Joseon, even the most corrupt official drunk on power and money pretends on the surface to be protecting the people. Here, there is not even that pretense.

Then again, it was a brutal way of speaking, but for those who held power in the corporate cities, this was in fact an entirely natural way of thinking.

Their single criterion for judging a person was one thing: profitability.

Because of exactly that, the Society of Truth would have found it far easier to wedge itself into those gaps.

They would have distributed food to the poor, arranged shelter, and in between all of it, let a peculiar poison called “the Gospel” seep through.

Up to this point, it is a fairly typical process by which a sham religion grows its following.

But the problem is that these people are not merely some passing cult.

“For an organization to carry out a bombing attack at a banquet where the children of power clans are present, it would have been impossible without the cooperation of an insider.”

Kim Hyunwoo put it exactly right.

The Japanese side had seemed inclined to smooth things over as though it were nothing much, but the Society of Truth, as a religious organization, appeared to have sunk roots considerably deeper than expected.

“Having to purge the inside once again on the eve of the expedition, you must have much to worry about.”

“……Yes. So it seems.”

Kim Hyunwoo’s single sentence here was truly weighted with meaning.

Its implication was far too clear. ‘The expedition is right on your doorstep and you can’t even keep your own house in order?’ At being told something to that effect, no matter how steadily Masahito tried to hold himself, hiding his true feelings was difficult.

“We have shown appalling discourtesy to our guests who traveled all this way. I give you my word that our city, and by extension our Shimazu family, will provide compensation appropriate to the offense.”

Masahito’s face visibly stiffened for a moment, then he smoothed his expression and continued. But Kim Hyunwoo’s brief words had torn the atmosphere of the place without mercy.

‘The head of security is a dead man. Whoever it is, what rotten luck.’

Even I, thinking that much, could predict the wretched fate awaiting that head of security. But we were nothing more than outsiders.

Whether an enraged Masahito chose to boil his terrified middle managers or roast them was none of my business.

And so the incident slowly wound to a close.

There was no way a banquet could simply continue after a bombing attack, and in the end, Masahito whisked Kim Hyunwoo away in another direction.

From the look of it, he seemed to be starting the ‘real entertainment’ prepared behind the scenes, the kind that the officials in Joseon typically received. Though whether Kim Hyunwoo would be glad of it was another question.

He was a stuffed-shirt type at heart.

In any case, with that, all the business of the banquet hall was finished, and the time to begin ‘the real work’ had come.

Instead of heading into the lavish accommodations they had prepared, I stepped into the elevator leading out of the building.

Officially, Joseon’s Andong Kim had announced its endorsement of the Japanese corporate city coalition’s plan to subjugate the mainland, and declared that Joseon would cooperate as a friendly nation in the task of eliminating the Rifts.

Kim Hyunwoo’s coming to Japan was likewise part of that joint undertaking.

But.

“Kim Jungheon’s real plan is nothing of the sort.”

I leaned against the elevator wall and thought.

Joseon currently maintains its position as the sole superpower in East Asia.

The reason? Because Joseon alone was spared the catastrophe of the Great Rift Incident.

Because when the world collapsed, when civilization shattered and split apart, Joseon alone remained whole and swept up the wreckage.

Because half of the Japanese archipelago was blown away, and across the Central Plains continent, factions are flying the banner of unifying all under heaven and reenacting their own era of the Three Kingdoms. This is to say: it is not at all because of any inherent strength Joseon possesses.

‘And now, Kim Jungheon, who rules Joseon, understands that fact far too well.’

As Admiral Yi of blessed memory once instructed: “The Japanese are cunning and cannot be trusted.”

From long ago, the people of the islands and the people of Joseon have been as oil and water, so whenever they try to do anything, it is practically written into our proud Korean people’s DNA to grab them by the ankles and drag them back down.

And yet, while the Japanese corporate city coalition carries out its operation to reclaim the mainland, he intends to simply sit back and let them?

He even sends Kim Hyunwoo, Joseon’s most promising young talent, to help them along?

Not a chance.

Kim Jungheon intends to catch two birds with this expedition.

‘By putting Kim Hyunwoo forward as bait, he plans to receive funding and manpower from them, while blocking the corporate city coalition from actually reclaiming the mainland.’

Which is why I exist, dispatched alongside Kim Hyunwoo.

While he makes his mark at the front lines, I will run covert operations in the background, working in the shadows to chip away at the corporate city coalition’s fighting strength.

The plan is to stage it so that Kim Hyunwoo appears to be rescuing the failing coalition.

‘In my previous life, Kim Jungheon carried out this role entirely on his own. He stood at the forefront, repelling the monsters, personally leading his family’s members, and shook the city-state coalition in the palm of his hand.’

That he sent me and Kim Hyunwoo to handle work important enough that Kim Jungheon himself would normally take it on directly, that alone is proof of just how unstable Joseon’s political landscape is.

For Kim Hyunwoo, this will be an opportunity to display his growth before the whole world, and make plain who the next head of Andong Kim will be.

And I am behind the front lines, running all manner of backroom schemes, playing the role of the doormat who wipes Kim Hyunwoo’s muddy boots.

But.

“With Kim Jungheon out of the picture, there’s no chance the Japanese side will play along so obediently.”

In that brief meeting just now, I had seen through Shimazu Masahito at a glance.

That old man, who carries a thousand serpents coiled in his belly, is not a figure to be trifled with.

‘The Japanese side has already sensed Kim Jungheon’s true intent. Better to assume that and act accordingly.’

They are not being fooled because they are stupid. They are pretending to be fooled, and making use of it.

This place is not Joseon, it is Japan. In their own parlance, it is their ‘turf.’

A covert operation run in foreign territory always ends up working in favor not of those who hold the initiative, but of those who laid out the board in the first place.

Every move I make right now is being played out on the palm of their hand.

Disturb the interior of the expedition force through backroom maneuvering?

There is no way that works in this city.

In that case, the only move I have left to make right now is a single one.

“A game board rigged so you cannot win must be flipped over and started from the beginning.”

If there is no answer by playing the standard game, you must bring in a move from outside it.

Draw in a variable they did not anticipate, and muddy the water.

That way, drag this expedition into a quagmire that neither they, nor even I myself, can predict.

What is needed for that?

A loach that will plunge into the neatly laid expedition plan and stir the water into chaos.

In other words.

“The Society of Truth. I need to dig into those people.”

People brazen enough to carry out a bombing attack on the head of a city-state, their grasp on reality completely severed.

‘We have seen God,’ ‘we worship monsters,’ ‘we have received revelation through the Rift.’

Fanatics like that could be a useful loach for breaking down the balance of this city.

Whether their screams or the smell of their blood, there is plenty of value in putting them to use.

The moment I reached that conclusion, my mind began to move quickly.

I already had the map in my head. All that was needed was the courage to take the first step.

Let the esteemed gentlemen stay in the city center, enjoying fine food and wine.

In any case, their place is on a brightly lit stage, and mine is in the shadow that stage casts.

I had to walk toward the back alleys of the city, toward the places where those who set their beliefs alight gathered.

It is there, and nowhere else, that the loose thread to unravel this expedition lies buried.